It is wrong. Not even a question. Because English.
This is more a matter of style, which can intersect with formal grammar. Numerals and single letters are allowed the apostrophe in some style books. (Like in “he got straight a’s in school.”) This, however, would typically get a plain s.
Really not trying to pick a fight, but I’d challenge you to find a style guide that supports an apostrophe for this. It’s not a numeral, single letter, or even an initialism (though why you’d ever write DVD’s as a plural is beyond me–adds no clarity, just confusion).
At best, I’d accept "so-and-so"s but that’s unnecessarily complex. People make things more complicated than they need to be! Yes, it’s an idiomatic term. Yes, the plural looks weird. Too bad. Add the “s” like any other normal plural and move along.
I’ve been editing for 40 years and have never understood this confusion about apostrophes and plurals. The ONLY one that makes any sense to be vaguely confused about is “its” and “it’s”, and that one isn’t even hard, just slightly anomalous. Yet I see it wrong every. damned. day. From native speakers, no less–ESL folks get a pass (and often don’t need it, on average do better than native speakers).
Plus most things have at least rudimentary grammar checkers that generally flag it. And still people ignore that, get it wrong.
Yes, I’m grumpy about this because I’m tired of having to correct it a billion times!
I never said one would. I do say that it typically would get a plain s.
ETA: Although the m-w link does show Merriam-Webster listing it as an alternative, so that should qualify. No style guide is going to have an entry specifically for “so-and-so.” (Or, rather, it is unlikely one would.) But they do tell you what dictionary to defer to.
I personally don’t really like it – I don’t think the plain constuction is confusing – but I also don’t like “because English” as an answer without real explanation.
Wow, I am disappoint, as the meme says (disappointed in M-W). Though of course dictionaries are more descriptive than normative, especially these days.
“Because English” was just agreeing that since it’s not a possessive or conjunction, there’s no reason for an apostrophe–that’s a basic rule of the language. Still isn’t.
OK, I don’t think I disagree with you much there. I did find a Universtiy of Sussex guide that leaves it more open and says basically to use the apostrophe-s if it’s bound to cause confusion, although it doesn’t leave any more guidance than that, but strongly discourages it. (“[w]hen you have to pluralize an orthographically unusual form, use an apostrophe if it seems to be essential for clarity, but don’t use one if the written form is perfectly clear without it.”)
I personally hate apostrophes and don’t like forms even like 1920’s or A’s (though I admit As looks ugly, too – I’d prefer a typographical solution to this that doesn’t involve an apostrophe.) But for something like “the La’s” it makes perfect sense, and if you were to write: “There are many dos-and-don’ts in the industry. Here are some dos to keep in mind,” it’s hard for me not to make a case for putting an apostrophe for clarity with “do” there. (Especially if you don’t already prime the reader to expect “do” as a plural with the phrase “dos-and-don’ts” beforehand. It’s probably the exact typographic liminal space between clarity and confusion no matter what you choose to do.
There’s certainly confusion in the case with “So and Sos”. “Which one of you is So and which one is Sos?” It is customary usage for bands to use an apostrophe; grammar be damned.
Sos is a Hungarian surname (written normally as Sós, but in English the diacritic would be dropped.) We could make up a convultued sentence with a Chinese or Korean So and a Hungarian Sos and a bunch of so-and-sos to make things spicy. We can have our own textual SDMB “Who’s on first” routine! Preferably written ee cummings style to add to the confusion and inability to visually parse common from proper nouns. Or band name! So and Sos and the So-and-Sos. Ah, but the hyphen gives our trick away.
Yeah, more than one do-and-don’t definitely is a tricky one. Interesting: if you Google “dos and don’ts” you find much the same discussion as we’ve just had, including:
The Chicago Manual of Style prefers “dos and don’ts” while the AP prefers “do’s and don’ts”.
And now the apostrophe in “don’ts” just looks wrong to me–semantic satiation/wordnesia/orthographic satiation/Gestaltzerfall strikes again!
P.S. There are/were, in fact, at least two “DOS”: IBM DOS/VSE (nowadays z/VSE) and Microsoft PC-DOS. Plus, I guess, DR-DOS.
(sorry, couldn’t resist!)
Oh, interesting. I have a copy of the Associated Press Stylebook 56th edition (2022-2024), and it does, indeed, have an entry for do’s and don’ts. I did check for “so-and-sos” earlier, and that wasn’t there, but that seems like a much rarer usage, so I was unsurprised not to find a specific entry for it. I could swear I have an APA stylebook somewhere, too, but I may have gotten rid of it when I pruned my bookshelf. Oddly, I don’t have a Chicago Manual of Style, which is the one I like best (though I was schooled on AP style given my journalism background.)
In Spanish: Dos DOS.
It’s your band, you can name it how you like. I’m reminded of The La’s, who stuck an annoying apostrophe in their band name, I guess to clarify that it was “La,” plural, and not the first word in Las Vegas, which is pronounced differently and generally has a different implied meaning.
If I was actually pluralizing “la” in a piece of writing for publication, I wouldn’t use an apostrophe, but when it comes to art, you just repeat the title the artist gave it, misspelled, poorly formatted, or however it might be.
If it were me writing, I’d say “lucky so-and-sos” but I could see a band maybe worrying that fans could think the last word is pronounced like a Chicagoan might say “saws”, or maybe even like “sauce”.
In short, I guess my point is that when it comes to art, titles and band names and other creative works like that, normal grammar and style rules go out the window. Look at Stephen King’s Pet Sematery for example. It sends a certain message in a way that isn’t really possible in a strict “academic correspondence” manner of writing.
I consulted with the band and we are going with the apostrophe. It does rub me a bit wrong, but we think it works for clarity. The hyphens help for some reason, too.
In the end the decision was more of an esthetic one rather than grammatical correctness. The Lucky So-and-So’s looks better to us. Besides, other people will spell it wrong no matter what we do.
The extremely rational approach.